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An Introduction to VB.NET and Database Programming

Where to Begin

The Recipe Application

For all you experts out there, move along, this is a beginner writing to other beginners. The first step to creating an application is to define what you want it to do. There are some basic features I want from my first ever Visual Basic.NET application and there are others that would be fun to try and add after I have learned more.

  • Store Recipes
  • List Ingredients and Instructions
  • Be searchable by Keyword, Ingredient, Preparation Time, or Calories **
  • Limit recipes and searches to those within a category (beef, chicken, breakfast, etc)
  • Allow the user to add, delete or update recipes
(** Not included in version 1.0)

Not the most thrilling application, but it should present several key learning points. To complete this application we will have to learn how to take input, retrieve information, display information, store information, and build an installer.

Where to Begin?

That is the question that all beginners have. I spent the better part of four days looking at the various and assorted books at my local super book store and cafe. I settled on Beginning Visual Basic .NET Databases by Forgey, Gosnell, and Reynolds and Murach's Beginning Visual Basic .NET by Anne Prince. These two books, I thought, would enable me to understand some of the basics of VB.NET and using databases with VB.NET.

The Murach book was an excellent source for the basics with source code for each application all contained on one page or several pages in a row. It was a good thing to not have to hunt through several pages of theory to find scattered code examples each time I had to check my code. Chapter 14 was dedicated to XML and provided me some insight into why I would want to possibly use an XML file to store the recipe data. The book was not in depth enough to show if I could do searches based on parts of the XML file or not. My design specs called for searching and this book did not assist me beyond the very basic parts of XML. I am a beginner, but there should have been more. I then moved on to the chapters about relational databases. Chapters 16, 17 and 18 in Murach's Beginning Visual Basic .NET were excellent for getting me into the basics of how to program an application with ADO.NET. I adopted the instructions in these chapters to work with a local access database instead of an SQL server.

Comments

  1. 12 Jan 2009 at 11:11
    here you can find a detailed help on ado.net http://vb.net-informations.com/ado.net/vb.net-ado.net-tutorial.htm calos.
  2. 03 Jan 2009 at 10:06
    Lahana Kapsülü Lahana Kapsülü Tala Krem Tala Krem diyet diyet sivilce sivilce
  3. 08 Jul 2008 at 04:52

    Hi Chathura,

          Good day to you. As you asked the question about the vb.net. And from your explanation you also said that you are little good in vb6. So once you are entering the .net framework area you should be aware of this area. Anyway you are a new user of this programming even u are good in vb6. The main matter in vb.net is that, its quit similar like java. Where in java, you write program in one platform but you can run the program from all other platform. But in vb.net you write the program in all platform but run the program from one platform. Mostly we use vb.net for database connectivity application. We choose this also for web applications. So its very usual that to make a program in vb.net we will be using SQL access, ado.net or asp.net etc. So its natural that if you download vb.net the other software also included with it. May I know what site you used to download vb.net? May be you are downloading fro, any wrong sites. Thank you.

     

                                                                                                                              Best regards

                                                                                                                                  Imran
     

  4. 11 Nov 2007 at 09:54

     i want to how to have a data set of more than10 tables

  5. 27 Jul 2007 at 15:21
    You are welcome.

  6. 28 May 2007 at 09:08

    Hi,

    As a M.E.  student of Computer Engineering  i am serching for the VB.net Platfrom how 2 start with & find your para usefull. Thanks

     

     

     

     

  7. 17 Apr 2007 at 09:11

    Hi All

    I'm a beginner to VB .NET but have quite good knowledge in VB 6. I'm currently in the process of switching to .net.

    When I install visual studio 2005, there are SQL Server Mobile package and some other SQL server stuff. could you please tell me why they are there and what I can do with them?

    Also, is there one called profile or something? As I heard, as a VB 6 project can hold many forms, in .Net there are profiles which can hold many projects. Could you please explain?

    Appreciate your help

    Best Regards,

    Chathura 

  8. 16 Dec 2006 at 08:11

    Hi,

    I am having a problem in data binding in vb.net. I have to use MS-Access as database and win forms controls to design a application. Please guide me . Specially in adding the records into the table at run time. Like I just enter the data in the text boxes and clike on the ADD button. The data should automatically be added into the table.

                                   Thank you.

  9. 24 Oct 2005 at 21:47

    a web site that I wrote works well under internet explorer, but when I run the site on mazilla the forms get changed.
    The colors are deleted, and the sizes of the textbox's, change.  When I examined the html code generated, there  was a difference between the code  for IE and Mazilla.  How do I correct this

  10. 25 Aug 2005 at 01:38

    Hi,
    I have a bit understanding of VB.net.
    Currently I m using winXP Pro.
    I Create an Installation, and I set
    DetectNewerInstalledVersion to False
    RemovePreviousVersions to True.


    However, When I first install a fresh copy, it run fine. An entry was created on Add/Remove Program.


    After I update something on the application and rebuild the installation file and change the product code and upgrade code; I re-run the installation again without uninstall the previous version.


    Installation was success. But the problem is it create 2 entry in Add/Remove Program.


    If i install 5 time, it will create 5 entry.
    I'm not sure what's wrong with my installation scripts.


    Like Winzip or Winrar. no matter how many time we run the installation, it only create one entry on Add/REmove program.
    Is there any other way to fix this ?


    Please help!

  11. 10 Jan 2005 at 22:36

    Hi,
        The topic which you have explained in the article has been of much help to me,I have Joined an organisation as a programmer.As of now,i have not yet started woith programming.
    But since i am new to this field,i would expect you to kindly post more articles which would make working with databases easy.


    Regards,
    Anu

  12. 09 Mar 2004 at 20:35

    Chas,


    VB .NET is the Visual Basic language which you can purchase by its self.  .NET Studio is the development Suite which can contain several different development languages, such as VB, C#, Visual J, etc.  I think you can get VB .Net for like $150 and the .Net Suite is around $1000.


    If you are a college student you can either of these at a greatly reduced rate for the academic version.


    Chester

  13. 02 Mar 2004 at 11:31
    Visual Studio is the Microsoft IDE for writing VB.NET and C# programs - VB.NET is the programming language!

    However, if you purchase VB.NET Professional, that will basically be Visual Studio with support for VB.NET (and not C#)
  14. 02 Mar 2004 at 10:43
    I read your article and its really nice.

    I wanted to ask you, what's the difference between Visual Basic.NET and Visual Studio.NET

    I know a litlle about Visual Basic 6 but I just got a new job and want to learn more stuff so that
    I can create a nice program for my company.

    I will purchase the books you recommend for beginners.   thanks

  15. 01 Jan 1999 at 00:00

    This thread is for discussions of An Introduction to VB.NET and Database Programming.

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